1994 release. "Performed by the Cincinnati Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by G. Samuel, this includes several of Ives' compositions that have been re-constructed from his complex sketches and notes. The brilliant pianist John Kirkpatrick (largely responsible for Ives' initial fame through his performance of the Concord Sonata in the 1930s) worked on several of the pianoworks, and composers Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison collated and completed the score of the Symphony No. 4 in the 1950s, while composer Larry Austin spent over 20 years to realize and complete the myriad materials for the Universe Symphony. Ives actually left a note inviting other composers to add to the work following his initial ideas. Approximately the first 15 minutes of this almost 40-minute work is given to the idea of the slowly growing and evolving 'life pulse,' music in which 20 percussionists play to an elaborate electronic 'click track' fed to them via headphones in order to coordinate the simultaneous 12 different prime number meters -- a massive rhythmic sound (paced at long intervals by the sound of a solo chime) and the first of three musical macro-layers. The other two layers are the Heavens for four orchestras, each in different meters and tempos, and the Earth with its 'Rock formation' and 'Earth chord' orchestras. These orchestral layers appear in different combinations within the three sections or movements. The second and third movements are the most similar to the 'Ives sound' of orchestrally dense works like the Fourth Symphony or the Robert Browning Overture, and sweepingly dramatic with an almost indescribable emotional flow. In the climax of the work all of the material sounds rush headlong to the heavens into silence broken only by the sound of one solitary chime."

"Charles Ives composed nearly 200 songs throughout his life. Wiley Hitchcock, in the thorough introduction to his 2004 critical edition 129 Songs, described the Ives song canon as 'the contents of a kind of scrapbook or commonplace book or chapbook, or even a desk drawer. Into such a receptacle Ives tossed irregularly, if not casually, his reactions -- in the form of songs -- to memories, personalities, places, events, discoveries, ideas, visions, and fantasies in his life.' Whether popular tale or personal reflection, this concept of the songs as memorabilia is realized in a most powerful way: the songs emotionally and viscerally evoke memory. Captured memories -- real or idealized, distant or near -- are the materials for the music. From cosmopolitan incident ('Ann Street') to pastoral stroll ('The Housatonic at Stockbridge') Ives's songs describe a range of experience: a child's playtime, a commuter's observations, a courter's hope. His songs exhibit reverence for the populace and pop culture, daring adventure, and family devotion; life and death. This new recording of 27 songs features superlative performances by soprano Susan Narucki, renowned for her authoritative interpretations of contemporary American music, and Donald Berman, whose recordings of Ives's piano music have been critically acclaimed."

"The music of Charles Ives is a cultural sourcebook of America at the beginning of the 20th century. He took the evangelical hymns, the college songs, the melodies of the dance hall, the tunes of small town bands and the sounds of village life and shaped them into musical works that are at once familiar and of startling originality. Long considered to be unplayable, his musical juxtapositions would prove to be enormously influential and inform such kaleidoscopic inventions as Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle and The Beach Boys' Smile. Ives today is regarded as 'a greatly original, immensely creative composer, who gave new dimensions to the vast and varied heritage of America¹s music.' A true 'American Original' who marched to a different beat. Ives audience stretches beyond classical into the modern avant-garde fields of Cage, Varèse and Stockhausen. He is very collectable and none of the pieces that comprise our edition have ever been re-released or restored digitally."

Performed by Heleen Hulst (violin) & Gerard Bouwhuis (piano). Recorded 2001/3. "Ives only composed four violin sonatas, but to complete the series, violinist Heleen Hulst and pianist Gerard Bouwhuis also recorded the pre-study for the Holiday Symphony, in 1973 completed by John Kirkpatrick, as the Fifth Violin Sonata. Kaleidoscopic."

1933-1943. "The invention of sound-recording devices late in the nineteenth century made possible the preservation of definitive performances played or led by some important composers of the first decades of the twentieth century. Elgar, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, and Stravinsky, among others, left a significant legacy of recordings of their own works. Charles Ives, however, did not approach recording in order to leave a legacy. At least at first, he simply wanted an opportunity to listen to some of his music with advantageous detachment (and possibly to shortcut supplying to Henry Cowell and others variants of his music). With virtually no performances of his important music occurring during the first two decades of the century, Ives certainly had a backlog of curiosity about the sound of his own compositional efforts, and the need to judge them as such. By 1933 Ives had retired from his insurance business and had largely finished writing his autobiographical Memos. He had heard some performances of his instrumental works (mostly in very disappointing efforts), but none of his piano works. While on an extended European vacation, he introduced himself to recording, at the Columbia Graphophone Company in London. Over the course of a decade that included four such sessions, Ives recorded seventeen different pieces, ranging from the early 'March No. 6' and rejected 'Largo for Symphony No. 1' to the 'improvisations' that indeed may have been freshly created in front of the microphone in 1938. But most of the music recorded -- the 'Four Transcriptions from 'Emerson,' the 'Studies Nos. 2, 9, 11, and 23,' and the 'Emerson' movement of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: 'Concord, Mass.' -- is related closely to Ives' early, unfinished 'Emerson Overture' for Piano and Orchestra (circa 1910?11). This meticulously re-mastered reissue restores this historic recording, originally issued by CRI, to the catalogue. The booklet includes complete tracking information and extensive historical notes and documentation."